“On iOS, itâ€™s almost impossible to leave a draft, read another mail, and go back to the draft. It can be done, but itâ€™s ridiculously cumbersome.”

Here’s how to do that quickly.

Q: How to save drafts in iOS Mail App?

A: Just start a new message in Mail, hit “Cancel” then use “Save Draft” (annotation 1). It’ll be saved in your drafts box.

Q: How do I access my last saved email draft on my iDevice?

A: There is the long way, which is using “Mailboxes”, then scroll down to Accounts, select an account, click Drafts, then click on the draft. To go back to unified email inbox, you then have to hit back two times, then select All Inboxes. It’s surely long and tedious.

Short way: hold the Compose button (annotation 2) to bring up your last saved draft.

The shortcut to last draft is saved as long as you don’t restart your device. If you restarted the device, as of iOS 5.0.1, you have to use the long way to access your last draft. Like this tip? Check ObamaPacman for more iOS and Mac tips.

Apple tested different versions, including Expose style iPhone multitasking. Apple could have used the mobile Safari styled tab switching for multi-tasking, but Apple probably choose the current method to conserve resources.

Not sure about current iOS but iOS used to take a screenshot of running app when you switch away. That could been used for app switching preview.

Thank you for this.
On iOS 5.0.1 (at least), this tip only works if at least one recipient (or any text) has been added to any of the To, CC, or BCC fields. If all those fields are empty, pressing and holding the Compose button just creates a new mail.

I’m not sure when this shortcut was added, but I tested in iOS 3.1.3 on a first-generation iPod touch and it doesn’t seem to work.

You don’t have to enter at least one recipient – it’s just that if you save draft and press and hold Compose RIGHT after, it creates new mail. But if you wait just 2 seconds, holding Compose does bring up the draft regardless of whether To/CC/BCC have any content.

I don’t know why this is so, but you won’t even notice this during normal use since you’ll need at least 1-2 seconds to actually look something up and then go back to drafting.

Unlike the previous replyer I had success testing this in IOS 5.0.1 without entering email adresses. Perhaps it depends on the account where you save your draft. My draft was stored in an Apple email account.